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THE WAR 

WITH A PLEA FOR ITS LOFTY 
AND DEMOCRATIC PROSECUTION 
TOWARD A SUCCESSFUL END 



A SERMON PREACHED BY 
REVEREND ARCHIBALD BLACK 
PASTOR OF THE SOUTH 
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 
CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE 
SUNDAY, JUNE 3RD, 1917 



PRINTED BY ORDER OF 
THE SOUTH CHURCH COMMITTEE 

I917 



THE WAR 

with a plea for its lofty and democratic prosecution towards a 
successful end. 

They shall heat their sivords into ploughshares and their spears 
into pruninghooks. — Micah IV: 3. 

In speaking to you this morning upon such an important and 
such a soul-reaching subject as this I feel that it is not only just 
and fair on my part but truly needful and essential that I re- 
mind you, at the very beginning, of one or two things concerning 
myself, and that I make a plain and an unmistakable declaration 
of my position in the matter of war as such. 

After all it is best and wisest that the ground should be 
thoroughly cleared at the start, that a man should represent him- 
self properly, and state his position beyond any question or doubt. 
It never does any earthly good, nor does it serve any real and 
moral purpose to sail beneath false colours, and leave a wrong 
impression. The old saying is as true today as ever it was: 
"Be sure your sins will find you out." 

Therefore, in the first place, I wish to remind you that I am 
not an American, but a Scotchman, born and bred and pretty 
well buttered so. So extremely Scotch that I have now given up 
all thought or hope of ever quite getting over it, since it shows 
so plainly in my face and manner, and even yet, after so many 
years in this land of America, a tiny little trifle in my tongue 
too. While one might not catch it at first or on the surface, — 
even becoming accustomed to it — if one listens attentively and 
closely my tongue bewaryeth me as Scotch. 

Of course I am free to confess that sometimes I have fondly 
and foolishly imagined that I had overcome the tongue part of it, 
and could almost speak like a regular and a civilized American. 
I remember how childishly delighted I was when, during my last 
visit to the country of my birth, and even to the city of London, I 
was addressed and spoken to for quite a considerable length of 
time as a true-born native American. But here, and especially in 
New England, I know that it is utterly useless. When I leave 
the city of Concord, or even this pulpit, to speak anywhere else I 
am soon made conscious — by looks or nudges or smiles — of my 

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"Scotchiness." The dear lady of this parish who in her pity and 
sympathy for me once remarked, "But, Mr. Black, can't you 
really speak English?" was only typical. Whether I can or not, 
it is still true that I speak it through the rain and the heather of 
old Scotland. It takes a lot, more than long residence in another 
land or even honest naturalization, to squeeze the rain and take 
the odour of the heather from a Scotchman's bones and tongue. 
And I wonder is there any reason in God's world why it shoiild 
and need be otherwise? 

Moreover, I desire to remind you that besides being a Scotch- 
man I am a minister also. Just an out-and-out, regular, and 
orthodox minister who preaches each and every Sunday in this 
Christian Church, and who, during the week, does the ordinary 
and the routine work of a minister. I am no orator, no lecturer, 
no politician, no other. I am, as I wish to be known, and love 
to be taken, your minister. 

And I say this that there may not be even the slightest mis- 
apprehension in your minds or misunderstanding between us; 
and that you may know right now and once for all that as such I 
am naturally the open and avowed opponent and antagonist of 
war as such; and that I loathe and abominate it, and hate it with 
a fierce and an awful hatred. To me war as such is simply hor- 
rible and atrocious — the very limb of hell and the devil — maybe, 
but more probably maybe not, fitted for a past and primitive 
age of human development — or near-savagery; but in our present 
state of evolution and our present advancement in civilization a 
cruel shame and black disgrace, and an ugly and a wanton sin. 

I have not the slightest sympathy with, or good feeling towards 
war as such: I can find no sanction or reason or excuse for it. 
To all who would seek to uphold it as necessary, or useful and 
good for the individual and the race — economically, socially, 
morally, religiously — I delight to give the lie direct. Too lately, 
keenly, personally have I undergone the torture of having many 
and many of my best and dearest boyhood friends and com- 
panions lost to me and the world and its usefulness, of having 
three of my own brothers in blood by the same dear mother called 
from a large and a wonderful share in the earth's upbuilding 
to spend their days in mud-soaked and blood-soaked trenches, 
giving themselves as billets for an unseen and unknown enemy's 
bullets, to be able for a moment to see and to admit war's use- 
fulness and good. And there are — and there MUST be — if we 
are human beings at all, and not mere beasts of prey born to 

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squabble and fight and die — other and better ways of solving our 
difficulties, our economic and moral and social difficulties: and 
other and better methods of keeping the human soul and the 
human race alive and virile and godly than by slaying and butch- 
ering one another. (Oh, if there are any other peoples in God's 
great universe, or angels good or bad, there must be laughter and 
tears of mockery and pity in their midst at our dull and stupid 
and brutal assininity.) 

Aye, it is true, my people, that we want a trained and a dis- 
ciplined people, a healthy, rich-blooded and courageous people ; 
that we want a people that can use its weapons and aim 
them straight. But is bloody war the only way to it? Are the 
only weapons guns and cannons and bayonets? When we are 
taught to aim straight shall the only target be the bodies of our 
own fellowmen? Are not the spade and the plough and the hoe 
as good for human development and handling as the sword and the 
gun? Does not God's earth offer and open to us a field wide and 
deep and strenuous enough for all our courage and our skill? 
"To tunnel her mountains, to drain her swamps, to combat her 
diseases, and to explore her unknown territories; to become master 
of her sea and her land, of her heights and her depths; to wring 
from her those jealously guarded secrets which, once disclosed, 
will only make man the SUPERMAN." Is there not enough 
here to make and keep man MAN in body and in soul without 
turning in anger and hate and blood upon our own kith and kin, 
and upon ourselves? 

I cannot let you know too simply and too plainly my position, 
and the one and only reason for my speaking this morning. It 
is because I hate war so bitterly and deeply ; because I feel in my 
heart its degradation and sin, and its utter madness; and be- 
cause I would have it ended forever. It is also because I believe 
you are all of the same opinion and the same desire. I do not for 
a moment imagine that there is a man or a woman in this Church 
this morning who has a word or a thought in behalf and praise of 
war as such ; but hates and despises and abhors it to the utter- 
most. 

Indeed, no one can know anything of the life-history in toil 
and pain and blood, of this great and glorious Republic and still 
deny that it has ever been the enemy of war, and closely and 
dearly wedded to the cause of peace. The pioneer fathers of this 
nation did not leave their homes and friends across the Atlantic, 
brave the stormy seas, and endure the rudeness and hardship and 

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death of a new and strange land for the love of WAR, but fcr the 
love of PEACE. The makers and builders of the fabric of this 
country did not make and build with such pains and endeavour 
for the glory of WAR, but for the glory of PEACE. With all 
the many faults and failings, with all the deviations and aber- 
rations from the straight and single path, the vision and the labour 
of America have been for PEACE,— PEACE AND THE 
FREEDOM OF PEACE FOR MAN TO LIVE ON EARTH, 
AND WORK AND SERVE HIS FELLOWS AND HIS 
GOD. 

No one can look, with fairness and honesty, into the record 
of these past two years and a half without being convinced that 
the leaders and rulers and the people of this nation have done all 
in their power to uphold and preserve and further PEACE, 
even hoping against hope, and running the risk of being called 
knaves and cowards for their trouble, — bearing and suffering, 
mourning and hoping and labouring much for its dear sake. 

Even today, amid all the noise of hurrying feet, the call to 
battle, the tramp of armies, and the horrid rattle of guns I 
maintain that it is not war as such in which we are interested, and 
in which we are engaged, but the gigantic labour and the titanic 
struggle for human PEACE. It is, is it not, the determination 
on our part that the mastery of this earth shall no more rest 
with the biggest and the bloodiest battalions, that right shall no 
more depend upon might, that a few evil and scheming and un- 
scrupulous men, for their own glory or advancement or safety, 
shall no longer decide in cabinet and secret that millions and mil- 
lions of God's good men shall leave their peaceful homes, and 
honest labours, to fight each other in a mud-stained and blood- 
stained battlefield, and through their wicked designs, lie dead in 
ghastly heaps; but that on this goodly and godly earth there 
shall be no more such wars, no more such barbarities, no more such 
sin, but PEACE AND PROSPERITY AND FREEDOM 
AND LOVE. 

Having this cause so clearly in our minds and hearts, in all 
our strength ready and willing to stand or fall, plead or fight, 
live or die for it! Greatly daring, greatly doing, greatly de- 
manding! Individually sure and nationally determined that 
Right must win and Right will win; that Peace must reign and 
Peace will reign, though all the might and power of hell be ar- 
rayed against them! As a nation and people seeking and striv- 
ing with all our power to bring order out of the present chaos, 

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save liberty from oppression, and see that justice and mercy 
and righteousness and liberty and peace shall not fall and fail 
in God's world, but shall live and prosper! "With malice 
toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as 
God gives us to see the right." 

Is not this so? We are not waging war today for war as 
such, — for any personal glory or gain, love of conquest and 
greed of dirty territory, from spite or hate or envy of others. 
We are daring and venturing for the highest and dearest of 
human hopes and rights. And never — let me say it as one born 
in another land — never has a nation, or this nation, had such 
clean hands, such a clear heart, and such a serene conscience as 
now. 

Too well and bitterly do we realize what love of gain and con- 
quest and money has done when we compare the Germany of 
Yesterday which was our friend with the Germany of Today 
which is our enemy. Yesterday Germany was a poor nation. 
So poor, we are told, that it was the common saying in Napo- 
leon's time that while France had the empire of the earth, and 
Britain had the empire of the sea, Germany, with its poets and 
philosophers, had the empire of the air. But in the midst of its 
poverty in gold, how magnificantly rich it was in the things of 
the mind: Lessing. Kant, Schelling, Goethe! In music, Bach 
and Beethoven, Mozart and Handel! Today Germany is rich, 
and has given itself to the development and massing of wealth. 
It is a country of mills and factories, of glowing furnaces, of 
huge financial operations. But where is the poetry, the phi- 
losophy, the music, the religion? In these real treasures of a 
nation and life what a stillness and barrenness have fallen on the 
Rhineland! All the more impressive and oppressive because 
of the rattling of swords, the noise of guns, the roar of cannons, — 
the brutal and savage cruelty and murder and suicide. 

O German Wealth of Today! What a trav'esty! What a 
mockery! What a weapon for good and glory turned to bloody 
hurt and suicide! Like Saul of old taking his sword, and falling 
upon it! It is the UGLIEST TRUTH IN THE WHOLE 
HELLISH MAELSTROM! 

The torture and suffering of Belgium are naught to this: for 
Belgium — though crushed and broken, carried into bondage 
and slavery — still lives, in spite of its desecrated temples and 
homes, in spite of its ravished people and trampled dead; and 
it will live forever to be honoured and sung by men and angels. 

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The bleeding of France is naught to this: for the name of 
France is written in the Halls of Fame, and on the hearts of men 
and God. Well might that Belgian soldier'cry: "Do not talk 
of our suffering; talk of our glory. We have found ourselves!" 
That French soldier: "For forty-four years we have been un- 
happy, in darkness, without health, without faith, believing the 
true France dead. Resurrection has come to us." What can 
be said of a nation which once was, in the deepest and the high- 
est — in song and poetry, philosophy and vision; but which has 
fashioned and beaten for itself a gaudy golden sword, turned it 
upon the world and on its own living heart, and struck a foul and 
an awful blow? Where there is now no more song, no more 
rhythm, no more laughter, no more light, no more love — nothing 
but hate, "Education to hate, organization of hatred, education 
to the desire of hatred; in whose eyes there are faith, hope, and 
hatred; but hatred the greatest." O God, have mercy and pity! 

And there will be no recovery, no hope, until Germany, in the 
anguish of pain and tears, — even in heartbreaking defeat and 
disaster, — has refound its lost soul, learned the lesson of life, and 
the secret of wealth: that it is not for self-aggrandizement, 
self-conceit, self-possession, not for self at all, but for lowly, 
humble service to others and mankind in the spirit of love: 
and until Germany has learned that the Galilean was right when 
he asked, "What shall it profit a man — or a nation — if he gain 
the whole world, and lose his own soul?" 

But since it is not so with us at this time and in this crisis, our 
privilege and duty are plain and simple: to recognize the issue 
fully, to uphold the venture boldly, and to see to it that it shall 
not, and cannot falter and fail through us; from lack of honesty 
and integrity, labour and love, and courage and sacrifice. 

Heaven forbid, my people, that by any thought or act on our 
parts we lower the national ideal of the hour, and besmirch its 
glorious cause, that we degrade and despise the lofty and mag- 
nificent standard set by our President. Let others be or do as 
they may, as for us and our house we will only serve the highest 
and our God. As a lover of this land which has done so much for 
me, given so much to me, means so much to me; and as a greater 
sufferer up to the present than perhaps any of you here this 
morning, this is close to my heart, and my dearest desire. 

And heaven forbid that for any reason we fail our country's 
need. What would we think of a man's avowed friendship for 
another, or of a man's vaunted love for home and wife and chil- 

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dren, which could dodge and shirk, and dared not face the fact 
of sacrifice? What must be our opinion of a citizen of this 
country, this state, this city today who calls it his own, believes 
in its righteousness, keeps shouting his patriotism at the top 
of his lungs, and waves the flag to the furthest breeze, and yet 
is not ready and willing to offer and give his heart and soul and 
life and all for it. Is not it the one test with us today as a 
people of our belief in the justice and righteousness of our cause, 
and of our real love and loyalty to our land? Not what we say 
and not our display; not our shouting and bunting; but our 
eager and almost wanton willingness to give to the utmost and 
to sacrifice to death. 

God knows! there is a cheap and a nasty thing which passes 
too frequently for patriotism, — a narrow, blustering, noisy, evil 
thing so often the refuge and haven of knaves and cowards, to 
be recognized by its boisterous clamour, its silly music-hall 
ditties, and its stupid and ugly jingoism. Sometimes it almost 
seems that the man with the strongest pair of lungs, the most 
rabid jingoism, and the biggest "Hip Hurrah," considers him- 
self, and is considered by others, to be the hero and saviour and 
patriot of his land, no matter what his record may be or how- 
shady and evil his life, — even if he be an arrant craven and a 
pro\'en dastard at heart. But we know today, and must know, 
for we will surely know to our joy or sorrow in the near future, 
that patriotism is much more than show and sound and noise; 
that if a man is bad himself his patriotism never can be good; if 
a man is a coward himself his patriotism never can be brave; 
and that patriotism without purity and courage and sacrifice is a 
farce and a sin, since in the last issue any real desire towards and 
any real love for one's country is moral and a sterling virtue. 

True patriotism is always deeper than the lip and the throat, 
and more than the boast or the flapping of a flag. It belongs to 
the very heart of a man, and is the outcome of the purity and 
righteousness of his soul, and the highest and best of his life. 
The memories of a glorious past are in it ; the recollection of God- 
like deeds is in it; the awful sense of God is in it; all that is true 
and noble is in it. It is human and divine. This is true pa- 
troitism — this alone is patriotism — and it surely takes a man of 
men, true and upright, loyal and God-fearing in life and character, 
not a brawler in the market-place, and not a recreant, to be a 
patriot. AND SET AS A DIAMOND IN ITS VERY HEART 
IS SACRIFICE. 



Indeed, there can be no escape from it for any living and aspir- 
ing human soul or nation on earth, whether in business or pro- 
fession, friendship or love, reUgion or peace or war. It is so 
pervading and fundamental. So truly so that it might be said 
that we have only been born and nurtured, and only are at all, 
that we may undertake and undergo sacrifice, since only through 
it can we live and move and have our hope. We are what we 
are today, individually and nationally, because of the countless 
sacrifices of the past, and because others feared not to make the 
venture and embrace the Cross for us. The future will only be 
according to our sacrifices for it. The Cross on Calvary was 
not an isolated and strange event in human history, but the 
symbol and the magnificent illustration of a common human 
experience. And the man who refuses to sacrifice for himself 
and others, for his nation and the best, is refusing man's great 
responsibility, and losing his God-given dignity — shaming and 
despising the past, disgracing the present, and betraying the 
future. 

Please do not misunderstand me, my people, I am not preach- 
ing to you a gospel of sacrifice for mere sacrifice's sake. I have 
long ago stopped thinking of it and of man and God in any such 
brutal and pagan way, — of man as a slave and God as his 
driver delighting in the swing and the bite of the lash. There 
is no virtue, no man, no Christlike God in such sacrifice. I am 
only preaching it as a great means to a greater and most wonder- 
ful end— to the dignity and divinity of men in the Kingdom of 
God's heart's desire. If there is ploughing and hoeing in the 
spring it is that there may be a rich harvesting in the fall, if 
there is uprooting it is only that the flowers of the garden may 
be the more perfect; if there is sacrifice it is only for the higher 
end of perfect consecration. I seek to show you that in sacrifice 
there is the power and the hope of giving you and others the 
fullest and truest life here and after: for to belong to the highest 
and best we know is the only life that is sweet and full here, and 
that has a glimmer beyond. 

"A good man never dies— 
In worthy deed and prayer 
And helpful hands, and honest eyes, 
If smiles or tears be there: 
Who lives for you and me — 
Lives for the world he tries 
To help — he lives eternally. 
A good man never dies. 



"Who lives to bravely take 
His share of toil and stress, 
And, for his weaker fellow's sake. 
Makes ever>' burden less, — 
He may at last seem worn — 
Lie fallen — hands and eyes 
Folded — yet, though we mourn and mourn, 
A good man never dies." 

And I am confident that this comes straight home to one and 
all of us at this time, in nation and state and city — to one and 
all of us in this Church of Christ this morning, men and women, 
old and young, rich and poor, strong and weak. To play our 
own individual part and take our own full share according to 
our opportunity and ability, and strength and means. Under 
the present circumstances I know of no loophole, no excuse, no 
exemption for any. We are all conscripted. It is not a matter 
for SOME, but for ALL: it is not a question of MAY or MIGHT, 
but a fact of MUST. If this venture is as we say it is — for 
peace and not for war, for freedom and not for greed — then it 
is OURS, ALL OF US: if it is for DEMOCRACY then it must 
be DEMOCRATIC. If it is not for ALL of us it is not for 
SOME of us; if it is not for ALL of us it is not OURS at all — 
AND WE ARE ALL WRONG, FATALLY AND SINFULLY 
WRONG. It simply cannot be undertaken properly and right- 
eously and accomplished successfully and virtuously by SOME 
— fought and fed and financed by them — but only by ALL. 

Personally, I will consider the national loan about to be 
launched a dreary and dismal failure in American principle and 
ideal — this country's first reverse and defeat — if it is not sub- 
scribed and over-subscribed by numbers of names as well as 
numbers of dollars; for while the dollars betoken the nation's 
mere wealth the names betoken its democracy. Personally, I 
will consider victory when it comes a national stain and dis- 
honour if won by the valour and the sacrifice of some and not 
of all; for the justice and the victory of our present cause rests 
with DEMOCRACY. 

Today we see shame and oppression, bloodshed and hate, 
the world a very whirlpool of madness, man turned against his 
brother in cruel and hellish war; but by our help and our sacri- 
fice, by the help and sacrifice of our whole united nation and our 
God we will bring to them and to our own the dawning of a day 
of PEACE, even if we give our all and we die for it. We are 
ready, are we not, to give and die for it? As were our fathers 




021 547 720 4 

and forefathers — our Washington and our Lincoln — for these 
dear homes of ours, for this sweet land of ours, and for the free 
and peaceful democracy of men upon earth. Determined that 
out of the turmoil and hell of it all there shall and there must 
come the death of autocracy and the blossom of democracy, — 
the grave of ugly war and the birth of beautiful peace. 

Here in this House of God this morning before man and God, 
in humble assurance, we once again "highly resolve that these 
dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, 
shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the 
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the 
earth." 

"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their 
spears into pruninghooks." 



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